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“I asked her along,” said Reine-Marie.

“Why?” said Susan. “Is there a problem?”

Reine-Marie started to answer, but Haniya gave her a shove and she almost fell off the packing box.

“I remember my mother,” said Haniya. “But not well. I remember her trying to protect me when the soldiers came. I was eight. I tried to find her years later, but the village was gone.”

She paused then and thought of the other village. The one covered in snow, in the valley. Frozen, it seemed, in time.

“I think she was killed,” Haniya whispered. She spoke directly to Enid Horton’s children. “Protecting me. I imagine your mother protected you too. In her way.”

“She tried, yes,” said James. He turned to his sister. “Remember when the smoke alarm would go off?”

Susan laughed. “She wasn’t a very good cook and it went off at least once a week. She’d come running into the living room where I was watching TV and shove me outside.”

James laughed. “I remember.”

“ ‘Get out! Get out!’ ” they both screamed, clearly imitating a hysterical woman.

“She went back in.” Susan looked at her brother. “I hadn’t thought about that, until now. She thought the house was on fire, but she went back in. For you.”

James looked stricken. “That’s true. We thought it was funny. We teased her about that relentlessly.”

“She loved you,” said Haniya.

“But the monkeys?” asked Susan.

They looked at Reine-Marie. Who knew the answer. Knew their mother had been tortured. Had been kept awake for days on end, listening to the shrieks of monkeys. Maybe even seen the panic in their wide, knowing eyes.

Now was the time to tell her children.

“Your mother loved you. That’s what’s in the box,” she said.

She laid a hand on the top of the container, as though to say goodbye. Then, reaching out, she helped Haniya up.

Chapter 40

Still no word from your friend in Nanaimo?” asked Gamache, as he took off his tuque and, shoving it and his gloves into the arm of his parka, he hung them up.

“No,” said Isabelle. “I’m afraid the evidence from the desk might’ve already shipped. I’ll call him back in a couple of minutes. Unless you’d like to?”

He laughed as he tried to smooth his hair. “I wouldn’t deny you the pleasure. Any news?”

“None,” said Jean-Guy, then went back to making phone calls.

Isabelle sat forward and said to the Chief, “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the bistro. About the possibility it was Debbie who killed Maria, then Abigail killed Debbie.”

“Oui?”

“I think, patron, that you’re off base.”

“How so?” He sat down and swiveled his chair to face her.

“I think you and Jean-Guy are fathers and you don’t want it to be Paul Robinson who smothered his daughter.”

Gamache paused, absorbing what she said before speaking, quietly, reasonably. “I’ve arrested fathers for the murder of their children before, Isabelle.”

“Yes, but this one’s different. This has Abigail Robinson in the mix. And a disabled child. You asked me what I think, and I’m telling you. I think both you and Jean-Guy want Abigail to be guilty of the murder of Debbie.”